TACLOBAN CITY- The Inflation Rate (IR) of Eastern Visayas continued to increase at 6.9 percent in October 2018.
This IR is 0.4 percentage point higher compared with the 6.5 percent IR a month ago, and 3.6 percentage points higher than the recorded 3.3 percent IR in the same period last year.
The regional inflation rate was 0.2 percentage point higher than the 6.7 percent national average in October 2018.
Leyte and Southern Leyte posted the highest increase of 0.8 percentage point each.
Leyte registered 7.1 percent IR in October from 6.3 percent in September, while Southern Leyte recorded 4.0 percent IR in October from 3.2 percent in September.
Biliran recorded a 0.3 percentage point increase from 5.1 percent in September to 5.4 percent during the reference month.
On the other hand, 0.2 percentage point decrease in IR were noted in Northern Samar and Samar settling at 6.3 percent and 8.1 percent, respectively.
Eastern Samar registered a 0.1 percentage point decrease, from 8.9 percent in September to 8.8 percent in October.
It is still, however, the highest IR among the provinces during the reference period. Southern Leyte, meanwhile, posted the lowest at 4.0 percent.
Among the commodity groups, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels registered the highest increase of 2.2 percentage points. It was posted at 8.3 percent in October 2018 from 6.1 percent in September 2018.
This can be attributed to the huge increase in the index of electricity, gas and other fuels.
The transport index also registered an increase of 1.4 percentage points in
October 2018 (8.6 percent), from 7.2 percent in September 2018.
Contributing to the uptrend were the gains seen in the index of operation of personal transport equipment and transport services.
The heavily weighted food and non-alcoholic beverages eased to 8.9 percent in October 2018 from its previous month’s rate of 9.2 percent, a decrease of 0.3 percentage point. This can be traced to slower price increases of fruits, fish, oils and fats, and vegetables.
Education further deflated to 16.4 percent in October 2018, recording a
0.2 percentage point decrease from the -16.2 percent a month ago, attributed to the decrease in the index for tertiary education.
The Purchasing Power of Peso (PPP) of the region remained at P0.80 in
October 2018. This PPP implies that goods and services worth 100 pesos in October 2018 only costs 80 pesos in 2012. (PR)
